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This is an AM receiver design from the manual that came with my electronic playground. Note the lack of a ground. The 1nF capacitor is a variable capacitor of unknown value. The three inductors are also of unknown value, and on the same core, the top two actually being a single center tapped one. The transformer is of unknown value. The 8ohm resistor is a speaker. The switch is an antenna. The diode is germanium. The closest thing I have to an antenna is a 5-10 foot wire, which I drape across the floor in a straight line. When I turn on the circuit I can't get anything unless I replace the speaker with a crystal earphone (it is recommended in the manual for weaker stations). When I use the earphone I can hear very faint static, and can also hear very faint clicking (not morse code, sounds more like a geiger counter) when the variable capacitor's knob is turned fully clockwise and when the antenna is pointing east/west, but not any stations (the car radio can pick up stations just fine, although there are a bunch of surrounding mountains that block out some stations). How can I get this to work? Also, I tried getting a ground connection, but it made no difference.
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